


inception

by be_brave13



Series: you don't have to reach for me 'verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Overhaul, Fix-It, Galra Keith (Voltron), I promise, Keith has elective mutism for awhile, Keith's Backstory™, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mute Keith (Voltron), Orphan Keith (Voltron), Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, This entire thing is Exposition but we'll get there folks, Worldbuilding, a slightly unfair representation of the foster care system, also this is a series now bc i liked the way it separated in my head better, nobody important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_brave13/pseuds/be_brave13
Summary: It all culminated to one thing: Keith had never in his life heard his soulvoice.All of the storybooks painted it as the big hurrah, the thing that turned your life around, 180-ing you into smiles and happiness and love.It wasn’t even that his refusal to talk was a problem; soulmates heard each other’s internal monologue, not spoken voice. So, anything from “I hate this teacher” to “Is water really wet?” could be a soulmate’s first sign from the other.The real problem was that Keith didn’t have one, Yet, he hoped. But in his head, his voice was the only one that ever rung around.Or, the beefiest worldbuilding slow-burn fix-it canon overhaul of VLD with soulmates and a large helping of broganes





	1. i don't wanna be nobody's fool

**Author's Note:**

> Thanksgiving 2017 I was inspired to write the outline for this fic. In its original form, it was seven pages of yellow legal-pad paper, including shallura as a minor pairing and Keith's mom living with him on Earth. 
> 
> It's come a long way since then. 
> 
> I can only say: this fic-turned-series is going to be so long. It's the cannon overhaul that nobody asked for and is coming way too late, but I'm here like Bob the Builder with my toolkit. Because fuck yes, I can fix it while also including my favorite-est and most indulgent troupes in the meantime :) 
> 
> There's a lot of angst in this bad boy, but never fear! We'll get to the pining eventually ;)
> 
> Enjoy folks!!
> 
> chapter title from Brandi Carlile's [Shadow On the Wall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyNo6lZi0vM&list=OLAK5uy_lRFVVP7QO_cki4O4cSgsG1V9xk69AAVNw&index=12)

It was funny how fast things could change, how fast they could go from fuzzy, happy, warmth to a cold pit of despair. It had happened to Keith one too many times over the course of his life. But none had been so bad as the first. 

He lived a simple life with his dad, out in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. The only fragments of that time stuck in his brain were being thrown into the air and caught by his dad while laughing and screaming for him to do it again, a cow named Hippo, a delicious mac ‘n cheese, two cowboy hats on hooks, a telescope in the corner, and of course, the last couple of days he spent in their small little house. 

Keith was alone. That had been his constant ever since his dad told him to hide, panic in his eyes, gave him a knife and his special firefighter jacket, and told him to wait there. 

He never came back. 

Keith was a curious kid, and at six he knew fully how to read, write, and do basic math. He’d snuck a peek at his dad’s papers and figured out that they lived ten minutes out from the town they seldom visited because Dad was hiding, but Keith couldn’t figure out why. 

Sitting there behind that couch, Keith thought he finally knew. He was hiding because bad guys were after his dad. 

Keith also knew a bit more about things than he should have, as his dad would leave him at home while he went into town sometimes. This way, Keith learned a lot about worldly things by reading books that he climbed up onto the cabinet to grab. The words he didn’t understand his eyes just ran over, but he got the main messages of what each story had to say. He learned about people risking their lives, going on adventures, and a bunch of useless information about a lot of things. 

Through that lens, Keith saw his dad as a hero and himself as a sidekick of sorts. The bad guys that were out to get them, though, had never seemed more real than that day. He thought of his dad’s radio, the kind that he wore headphones to listen to, and how it was first his head that rose sharply, followed by a building of tension in his shoulders, then his dad was shooting up out of his chair and his eyes were panicked but his voice was stern. 

“Keith, get behind the couch. Now.” 

There was something in his tone that told Keith to follow orders, and he, in the blink of an eye, was given a sharp purple blade he’d never seen before, a red and white leather jacket he used to wear while pretending he was a superhero firefighter just like his dad, and directions to:

“Stay here Keith, and be quiet. I’ll be back soon. I promise.” 

After hours of scenarios running through his head of his dad being an action figure in some movie, kicking out some guys in black masks, Keith started to feel scared. 

_ What if the bad guys are too much for Dad?  _ A stray thought built itself up enough to be heard.

Upon this thought, abject horror coursed through him as he sat behind their dusty brown couch, clutching the knife in fear of his life, but knowing now he needed to be silent so that they wouldn’t find him next. Keith envisioned himself being like one of those squirrels on the side of the road that somebody had run over on accident, left there to rot, and he tried to stifle his tears as they rolled down his cheeks.

He sat there through the night, only falling asleep because he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. When he awoke, he was still alone, but he was hungry and thirsty and scared for himself and his dad. 

After trying furiously to keep it together, Keith broke and began to sob loudly, uncaring who it might alert to his position. 

After he finally calmed down, Keith crawled away from the couch in search of some food and water, but bringing the dagger he’d been left with, of course. In the kitchen, while his cup was filling under the sink, he stared out at the desert around him. It was empty and quiet besides the sound of water, like it was every time he’d stared through the window. 

_ Maybe Dad threw them off my trail,  _ Keith thought.  _ Maybe they saw him running and all of them followed him, and I’m safe now.  _

He looked back down to see water spilling over the top of his cup and down into the drain. He turned off the water and brought the cup to his lips, sipping a bit at a time as he made his way to the fridge. Keith tried not to focus on the thought of bad guys chasing his dad, instead glancing to make sure the dagger he’d placed on the counter was still there. 

It was. 

He ate some cold pasta they’d had for dinner a couple days ago, because he couldn’t reach the microwave above the stove. He moved the knife down to the kitchen floor and sat next to it while shoveling the food into his mouth. The pasta was kind of gummy and a little bit gross, but Keith was hungry and not picky in the slightest. 

This started his routine of living in a house of silence, returning to his couch hideout whenever he wasn’t eating or using the bathroom, always on the edge of thinking he was going to be captured or his dad was going to come back and sweep him into his arms and make him some mac ‘n cheese so everything could be happy again. 

But after four days of living like this, Keith was starting to run out of food and he’d cried himself sick the night before. He lay curled up behind the couch, the knife in his fist as had become the usual in the past days. He was shaking, the red and white leather jacket was too loose but he wore it anyway, the sleeves folded to mitigate their actual length.

Then there was a knock on the door. 

Keith froze. 

_ It's Dad!  _ He thought joyously, springing up from his fetal position on the floor, letting the knife fall out of his grasp. But as he sat up, he realized that it could just as likely be the bad guys come to finish him off, and his hand flew out to the side to snatch up the blade.

He was frozen in indecision for a moment until the knock came again, this time with a voice. 

“Hello? It’s me, Brenda. I have the eggs, and I was wondering if you had Hippo’s milk ready for me?” 

Keith shoulders immediately lowered, and again the knife clattered to the ground. 

_ It’s just Brenda, it’s just the egg lady from down the road, I’m okay, everything is okay.  _

He wanted to get up, to run to the door and fling it open and let Brenda in, give her the milk that the Koganes gave her every week, but Keith was just so happy that someone was here that he could do nothing more than cry. 

At first it was soft, but it quickly grew in volume until Keith was wailing, over Brenda’s hurried knocks, over her frantic shouting, and finally until he heard sirens wailing. 

That sound jerked him out of his realization that he would be okay back into danger mode, as his father never wanted him to interact with cops. 

His mind raced while he panted air in and out of his mouth, breath still shuddering. 

_ Hide the knife _ . 

He reached out for the purple dagger and slipped the jacket off his shoulders to unzip an inside pocket he’d found trying to keep himself awake. Then, he put the knife inside it, zipped the pocket back up, put on the jacket, and waited. 

When the police came in, breaking down the door, they searched the house and Keith didn't bother moving knowing they'd find him. 

He just closed his eyes behind that couch and breathed in and out until he felt a touch to his shoulder and jerked away. 

His eyes opened to see the face of a man, blurry due to his tears. He just closed his eyes again, and didn't open them until his head stopped whirling.

But that was when the questions started. 

What's your name? How old are you? Where's your father? How long has he been gone? How do you like living with your father? We understand you don't have a mother? 

He tried his best to answer all of them, saying “Keith Kogane. I'm six, my dad’s gone fighting bad guys. He's not been gone long. I love my dad. I don't know my mom, she left.” 

But eventually, he couldn't answer anymore, he was tired and scared and so he said, “I want my dad to come now.”

But his dad never came. 

Nobody ever came for him, really. He was the one who went to others, and not entirely because they wanted him, either. Foster care, they called it. All he knew was that he didn’t want them. He wanted his dad, but as the months passed, his confidence in him dwindled into a slim hope. Keith couldn’t bear the thought of him being dead, so he didn’t think about that. 

He imagined his dad just having trouble finding him, especially because of how unstationary he was. He moved, stayed there long enough to start sleeping at night, then got moved again. The cycle repeated six times in one year. 

“He’s too sullen,” Keith would overhear. “He doesn’t want to play with the other kids, or even talk to them. All the does is read, except for when someone riles him up. Then his disciplinary and behavioral issues show up and he gets into a fight. And so, eventually we can’t keep him.”

Keith screamed the first time it happened; he was sitting in his favorite corner of the monkey bars, idly kicking his legs and ducking beneath the hair he’d started to grow out. His dad was the last one to cut it, and nobody else could come near him with a pair of scissors, or he’d snarl.

All of the sudden, a boy yelled up at him, “Why’re you all alone?”

Keith didn’t spare him a second glance.

“No friends, huh?” The boy wasn’t being nice, his mocking tones ringing cruelly in Keith’s ears, but he tried to ignore it, instead clenching his fists.

“Yeah, you’re kinda freaky. That’s why you don’t have friends. And it’s probably why your daddy left you too. ‘Cause you’re just a big old stupid freak!”

Keith was off the bars in seconds.

“I’m not a freak! And my dad didn’t leave, he was chased by bad guys and he’ll come back for me! He’ll come back, you stupidface, just wa-!”

Angry tears ran down his cheeks; Keith had punched the kid in the face. Several times.

And of course, he was promptly whisked away. Nobody believed that he was provoked, nobody listened to him when he tried to say that kid goaded him into doing it.

They all just thought he was some kid with anger issues, mommy issues and daddy issues; a kid with abandonment issues who would end up being homeless under a bridge. Nobody looked at him and thought, “little Keith Kogane, with the long hair,” only as a troublemaker and another hopeless case.

Slowly, he stopped trying to scream. It was easier to just go along with it. 

He found silence as a sort of solace. It meant nobody was watching him, waiting for him do do wrong; he didn’t have to watch out for attacks or talk to anyone either. It was ideal. And when they started to ask questions, he just pulled his silence around himself like his red jacket and his father’s last words, both of them keeping him safe from their words of suspicion and hate.

He stopped responding. He stopped initiating. And at age seven, Keith Kogane stopped talking. 

Because Keith no longer talked, he was deemed even more of a lost cause. The attitude of the adults around him became more and more indifferent, and Keith learned that his silence was not appreciated at all by others. 

He had no friends at school. This was fine by him, because when he’d get moved later on he’d have to leave them anyway. But this also made him an easy target to bullies, as he was new, often came in the middle of the year, a loner, and he didn’t talk. Especially when they figured out he wouldn’t tell a teacher on them due to his silence. 

Sometimes it wasn’t even that they’d push him, but they'd taunt him until he broke. Stupid, dumb, moron, alien-boy, rude, he’d heard them all. But his least favorite was freak. 

He knew that it wasn’t normal not to talk, most people didn’t talk only if their voice box was broken, and Keith’s wasn’t. So, he concluded that he was most definitely irregular. Maybe even a little bit freaky.

But it all culminated to one thing: Keith had never in his life heard his soulvoice. 

All of the storybooks painted it as the big hurrah, the thing that turned your life around, 180-ing you into smiles and happiness and love. 

It wasn’t even that him talking was a problem; soulmates heard each other’s internal monologue, not spoken voice. So, anything from “I hate this teacher” to “Is water really wet?” could be a soulmate’s first sign from the other. 

The real problem was that Keith didn’t have one,  _ Yet _ , he hoped. But in his head, his voice was the only one that ever rung around. And, Keith wasn’t invincible.

Through his experiences, Keith found a pattern in bullies. After locking in to their target, he found that bullies liked to expand the range of torments they could use against their victim. So, after they happened to bring up soulvoices, and Keith visibly cringed, bullies’ faces would lighty up with joy before adding various soulmate-related jabs into their daily arsenal of torments. 

Upon moving after that first time (Keith had kicked their asses after they took it too far and insinuated that his dad didn’t have a soulmate), he was relieved that particular brand of torture was over, but he soon found that bullies were very good at finding things out. 

So, yeah. When they called him a freak, he almost believed it, because he was an unwanted, unloved problem child; an abandoned orphan without even a soulmate who would want him. He was alone. And since he learned in science class that humans are social creatures, he kinda sorta maybe even agreed with them. 


	2. i am missing someone but i don't know who

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, it wasn’t just that he was an orphan, that his hair was too long and he was short. It was also because he had never heard his soulvoice. Basically everybody else had heard theirs by now, and at the age of nine, Keith began to wonder if he even had a soulmate.
> 
> OR Keith experiences some highs and some lows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Brandi Carlile's [Josephine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu86L4KM5Yk&list=OLAK5uy_lRFVVP7QO_cki4O4cSgsG1V9xk69AAVNw&index=7)

When Keith was in his eighth foster home, he was placed with a kind older couple. He liked them because they didn’t force him to talk or try to “fix” him. They were just quietly there for him in a way that he didn’t feel stifled. 

The woman, whom he was told he could call “Grams,” would take eight-year-old Keith to the library on Sundays and let him roam free in the bookshelves. 

He loved the otherworldliness inside the library- a space where quiet and silence were not only accepted, but the norm. The books on the shelves were like portals to other worlds that let him get away from his own and go on an adventure. He could be anyone, go anywhere, and do anything.

And, when he’d come back to Grams with a big stack of books in his arms, she’d just smile and say, “That’s all you want dear?” Upon his nod, she’d take the books from him and say, “Okay, let’s go check those out for you.”

The entire summer he stayed there was perhaps the most wonderful time he had in the foster care system. It imbued in him a love of reading, learning, and libraries, all of which became essential parts of his being. It was part of the list he came up with, because sometimes even he forgot who he was in the crowds of people talking at and over him all the time, over and over, and as soon as he started to define himself in places, he was torn from them.

_I am Keith Kogane,_ he’d start with. _I had a dad. He left. I have black hair and purple eyes and a birthmark on my ankle. I like to read and learn. Libraries are my favorite place. I haven’t heard my soulvoice, but I have my firefighter leather jacket and knife._

He repeated the words so often in his head that they became an escape. Whenever it became too much and he felt too weak, too invisible, too  _ freaky _ – he’d chant the words over and over to cling onto the fringe of his dignity and sense of self.

At times, he almost longed for the four days he spent alone in the shack, because at least there he was alone and he knew who he was. 

But when that summer came to a close, Grams’s husband passed away. Upon hearing the news, Keith crawled into the corner of his room and tried his hardest not to cry. He liked the library, he liked Grams and her husband Gramps, he liked how they didn’t make him talk, just told him to thumbs up or thumbs down when they asked him a direct question, and he liked how they never once called him dumb or freaky. 

When Keith had woken up screaming from a nightmare about his father being gutted right before his eyes, he awoke to Grams’s concerned eyes and hair pets and Gramps saying “It’s alright. You’re not there anymore, it’s not real.” 

When Keith had been wary and distrusting, they never pushed him, just let him hide out in his room, providing food and human interaction when he asked. But it was the best summer he’d experienced since his dad had… disappeared.

So, when his agent came knocking at Grams’s front door, Keith trembled with fear of the unknown that would come for him. Grams frowned unhappily at him, mouthing “Me too,” before she gathered Keith up close, kissing his hair and whispering to him, “I love you sweetie, I wish we could have kept you.” 

_ But it’s too little, too late _ , Keith thought as he watched the coffee brown house get smaller and smaller in the rear view window of the car until they turned and it was out of sight.

* * *

Of course, it wasn’t just that he was an orphan, that his hair was too long and he was short. It was also because he had never heard his soulvoice. Basically everybody else had heard theirs by now, and at the age of nine, Keith began to wonder if he even had a soulmate. 

He snuck to the library, his favorite escape no matter what foster home he was in at the moment- there was always a library at school or nearby that became his refuge. 

Right now, it was a public library located a couple blocks away from the house he was staying at, so he went there all the time. 

It started when he realized that the bullies here hadn’t found out about his soulmate. Oddly enough, they only seemed to snicker at Keith when he passed them by, not even picking on him to his face. It was fine by him, but it was odd. Keith hadn’t understood why until he overheard them talking about soulmates. 

“I think Keith has a soulmate, why wouldn’t he? He just thinks he’s too good for us, that’s why he doesn’t talk to anyone. He thinks it makes him look cool.” 

While that certainly wasn’t the case, Keith didn’t want to correct them, and instead realized that it had been assumed he had a soulmate right off the bat due to his age. This prompted him to do more research on the subject so he could tell for himself if it was really not a good sign not to have heard his soulvoice by now.

Upon entering the library after school that day, Keith went into the “soulmates” section of the library and started pulling books. He titled the project “Soulmate Search,” which he knew wasn’t the most creative name, but he was the only one that would ever hear it, so he made his peace with it. 

He gathered books and books and books about the history of soulmates and soulvoices. After two weeks, he’d compiled all the relevant information they had. 

The longest recorded gap between soulmates was fourteen years.  _ So _ , he thought,  _ I could just be unlucky.  _ But, most people heard their soulvoice for the first time when they were between five and seven years old. And Keith was nine. 

Then, he thought,  _ Maybe I’ve heard it but I didn’t know it wasn’t me? Or maybe I was asleep? _

This too, lead to a dead end. Apparently soulvoices sounded much different from a person’s internal monologue, were quite distinct, and became the only thing a person could focus on in that moment. Any thoughts going on in their head ceased, and sounds they heard quieted, and anything they were seeing went blurry for a minute. In addition, the soulvoice connection only worked when both parties were awake, having something to do with brainwaves that Keith didn’t understand while reading the college-level textbook he had to get the librarian to pull down for him. 

After about a month’s worth of research, Keith let one of his thoughts surface that had been floating around, half-formed in the back of his head. 

_ What if I don’t have a soulmate? _

The thought was unwelcome, but he couldn’t deny how plausible it seemed. It would make a whole lot of sense if he didn’t have a soulmate. Why would he, anyway? 

All he had that belonged to him were the clothes on his back, his dagger, his name, and the birthmark on his ankle that looked like a smudge. He didn’t talk, got moved around about yearly from foster home to foster home, and got bullied for everything that defined him. 

_ Nobody would want me anyway.  _ He thought, deliberately and slowly.  _ Nobody would love me for who I am. Everyone has left me. I don’t deserve a soulmate.  _

He sat and stared, blinking absently at the wall as his thoughts twirled incoherently around his head. He didn’t cry; he knew he had no more tears to waste on the subject, especially not in the library. Here he was supposed to be safe, here he could escape into other worlds where he was a hero, an adventurer, someone worthy and noble and loved. 

Instead of letting the wall break down, Keith clenched his jaw, picked up the books scattered on the table, slammed them on the return cart, and left the library. One thought was his sole point of focus as it consumed his mind bitterly.

_ The Soulmate Search is over. I’m on my own now. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First part done!!!! Don't worry, there's more smol Keith to come :) 
> 
> Feel free to tell me what you think!
> 
> There will be more to follow very soon :)

**Author's Note:**

> ...sorry? 
> 
> all I can say is that things get worse then they get better :) 
> 
> you're welcome to crucify me in the comments all you like!!
> 
> that's all for now, folks!


End file.
